oh no....was that a "zap"??

[wazoo]

I was in the middle of finishing off some AI code last night when my son (2) wanders into the office, bottle of milk in hand, to take a look around. He then casually sauntered over to see what I was doing.

Before I could stop him, he touched the dvd-rom drive. There was a loud "ZAP" of static electricity and my whole machine died right there..

*sob*

Did my ATI-9800 Pro make it?? *double sob*

[GBGames]

The thoughts and prayers of all indies are with you and your machine in this time of tragedy.

[Jack Norton]

Keep young babies, cats and dogs out of the office - this is a must :)

[Raptisoft]

Sorry Wazoo.

Once my son (1.5 at the time) went up to my brand spanking new 19" flatscreen bleeding edge top of the line monitor and casually threw it over onto the edge of the table. The result was a dark line of pixels burned into the center of the screen, as if they'd be crushed there.

The curious thing was that, as the months went past, this line "healed." I still use the same monitor, and no burn.

So, basically, what you need to do is scream every foul word you know-- this is very important-- at the top of your lungs. You should also make sure that your wife, dogs, kids, etc, are afraid to come near you for about an hour. If someone calls on the phone, snap at them, even if it's your priest. Be sure to slam something. Anything will do.

If you do this, in about 50% of the cases your hardware will accept the sacrifice and start working again.

[AnotherDev]

It sure sucks.
Happened to me 4 years ago.
I turn on the computer and it almost exploded. There was fire and smoke.
Almost everything that was connected to the computer was fried..even the keyboard. Strangely the only thing still working was...the video card. :)

Anyway I lost the source code of a project and since this event I make regular backups.

[Pyabo]

Well, what's the prognossis, doc? I bet your machine survived OK... ? Most solid-state electronics are more resilient than people think.

I once short-circuited my motherboard against the case and *zap* it shut down in a hurry. But no apparent harm done to anything... just re-seated it and boot it right back up.

[wazoo]

Well due to my mom visiting my wife and I this weekend, I likely won't have a chance to check out the damage "under the hood" until next weekend. :(

But it definitely won't boot. :(

As long as I can salvage the video card and hard drive, I won't complain. Heck, it's even a good opportunity to upgrade to a much bigger HD than I have now (4 gig). My only concern is my source code. I was only a few days away from releasing an alpha version to my artist. *sob*

Thanks for your kind words and thoughts guys....I just needed to tell somebody the awfull news..:(

[Fish-Guy]

I once experienced a problem where I had ran out of the house to grab a bite to eat. when I returned, the apartment was full of thick black smoke. I thought at first I had done something stupid like leave the kettle on, or the coffee pot, but it turned out that the PSU in the PC overloaded and burned a silver-dollar sized hole into the motherboard. It took me weeks to get rid of that smell....

All the other components worked fine, but replaced the PSU without even testing it as im sure it was the cause =)

[Vectrex]

wazoo: hang on... you've got a 9800pro... and a 4 gig harddrive? Didn't they stop making them like last millenium? :p

[wazoo]

Yeah yeah...well everything survived except my mobo...so I'm off tomorrow or this weekend to hopefully pick one up..

I also moved my office into the basement (unfinished), so that it reduces the chances of more zappage. I've also raised the humidity levels in the house to help out...

(okay I added more water to the crappy tray that sits next to the heat exchanger...which is the "humidifier" according to my builder. :rolleyes: )

[Anthony Flack]

Keep young babies, cats and dogs out of the office - this is a must


Easier said than done. At least, it is when you live in a 2 room apartment and the "office" is one corner of one of the two rooms.

My 1-year old likes nothing better than to work the computer. Pounding on the keyboard, clicking the mouse at every opportunity. It's quite amazing how quickly she can screw everything up, too. Seems to have a knack.

[wazoo]

Yeah there's something "alluring" about the machine...

Maybe it's genetically passed down from me? :)

Anyways I always lock the machine up when they're around so that they can pound away but it won't do anything damaging....like suddenly moving folders around because of random clicks and drags..;)

[yanuart]

it happened to me like a year ago.. not by a force of an infant but more bcoz of a force of nature.
There was this storm and lightning shower in my area.. and I should've known better..
One big lightning struck.. and zap.. I can actually see my computer lighted up (it was like sombody taking picture inside my PC) and judging by the size of the project I'm working on that time.. I'd rather chose the lightning struck me instead of my computer and this is no kidding...
oh.. the horror.. of course I have to wait like 18 hours to see wether my PC was okay or not cause the whole area was blacked out too... I made all of the promises I can make to JC including quitting my smoking habits if He can save my HD..
and then miracle happened.. the next day I turned on my PC and everything was fine !!!! well not 100% fine.. the power supply was busted, the machine kept going off after a minute or two.. but other than that everything was fine yay..

so my advice.. the next time shit happens.. just gather yourself up before doing something u'll regret.. i don't have kids so I can't imagine what a conflicted feelings I get if something like that happens...

in fact.. the only thing you should worry about is your harddrive and I just found out that they have this cool harddrive salvage service in my town.. a friend of mine works there.. it's amazing how they can save datas from your burned down/crashed/else HD..

ps : sometimes I still smoke...

[C_Coder]

I have kids so I have to be careful that something like this does not happen. I have made a small utility that zips up and copies all the sources to a CF card every hour. Like this I should be safe.

Also make sure you make a no-kids sign on the door! :p